Today I had a little chat over the CB with a few people regarding a particular post. I was curious why it had such a low rep and also why it had been put up for consideration. When I discussed the later with the person responsible I realized that were some good reasons, but that these reasons were not obvious to me because the question was not within my scope of experience and perhaps because I havent been around as long as the individual concerned.

Now of course its up to senior monks to chose their comment when they put a node up for consideration, and its up to peoples conscience about how they vote but it is a generally held belief that downvoting someone without explaining yourself is bad form, and I think the same is true of consideration. Now this doesnt mean that you should downvote someone and post 'Cause you have a bad attitude' or things like that, theres no point in starting a flamewar if you dont like a post. But do consider that until TheDamian completes Perl::Mindreader written feedback is about the only way the OP will know what you didnt like and be able to put effort into changing their approach. You never know, you might even get a /msg containing an apology or explaination.

OTOH there are many reasons why people might not like a post, downvote it, consider it or just plain ignore it. So a few thoughts about new posts: (this list is not in the slightest bit exhaustive

Dont use module names as title/subjects.

When you pick a title ask yourself if you really think that anybody would be able to find it via a search.

If its a SOPW then before you ask do a search, at least on the same words as you will put in your title.

Try asking on the CB _first_ if its a simple question, or if you just need a pointer in the right direction

Anyway, just felt like a post like this was needed. Its too bad to a certain degree that we dont have a set of posts like this that automatically show up on the monastery gates every now and again, and maybe always for anonymous monks and monks under a certain level.

Yves
-- You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)

Besides reading PM, I'm a teaching assistant for an
undergraduate programming course, which produces questions
that are similar in scope. In my experience, there are two
kinds of questions:

Inquisitive questions. The questioner needs (or
wants) to know something, and can't find it in the places
they know to look (which may be quite limited), so they
ask in a public forum. Usually, at the start of term,
most of these questions are right out of the textbook, but
the people who ask these questions tend to keep finding
references -- and using them -- as time goes on.

Lazy questions. The questioner can't be bothered to
RTFriendlyM or STFunW for
their answer, so they post a question in a public forum
and offload the burden of research and explanation to
others.

My point -- and I do have one, really! -- is that, in my
experience, the most useful answer to "basic" questions is
a quick pointer to the appropriate reference. The
inquisitive questioner will discover a new source of
information, and the lazy questioner won't waste as much of
your time (and may just discover how useful manuals are).
--
:wq

Went to join the gridlock to see it
Held an eclipse party
Watched a live feed
I cn"t see tge kwubosd to amswr thus
I tried to see it, but 8000 miles of rock got in the way
What eclipse?
Wanted to see it, but they wouldn't reschedule it
Read the book instead